DaBaby has been cooking on Instagram for a couple of years under the name No Knife, the joke being that the food is so soft you don't need one. On Sunday, September 6, the bit became a business. No Knife Chicken & Waffles opened in Charlotte, and by Thursday the whole internet had an opinion on one menu item. XXL has the rundown.
The waffle
Forty-five dollars gets you the Soul Food Cornbread Waffle. It is a cornbread waffle, made from scratch per the man himself, topped with collard greens, turkey leg meat, mac and cheese, a sweet potato soufflé with pecans, and four pieces of fried chicken. It is, by any honest description, a Sunday plate stacked on a waffle iron. The viral clip came from @imnolimitlarry on TikTok; the comments wrote themselves.
DaBaby's response came on Charlotte TV. He did Power 98 over the weekend and Positively Charlotte on Wednesday, September 9, and gave the quote of the week to anyone who thought $45 was steep: "Waffle House has something for you." His own valuation: "This is really a $100 waffle."

The business behind the joke
Rapper restaurants are a graveyard. The ones that survive have a real menu, a real neighborhood and an owner who shows up. DaBaby has all three going for him: he's the most famous person from Charlotte who still lives in Charlotte, the food is his grandmother's, not a licensing deal, and he's doing local morning television to sell it. That's more effort than most celebrity concepts get in their first month.
The $45 price is the marketing. Nobody was going to argue about a $14 chicken and waffle. A $45 one gets a TikTok, a defense, a second TikTok, and a line out the door of people who want to say they tried it. He priced the controversy, not the plate.
For a rapper whose last three years were mostly courtroom updates and apology tours, a hometown restaurant that's trending for the food is the best news cycle he's had in a minute. Whether the waffle is worth it is a Charlotte question. Whether it worked is already answered.
## Sources - DaBaby Launches No Knife Chicken & Waffles Restaurant, Defends $45 Waffle — XXL (@XXL), Sept. 10, 2026
